Stocks in the news (lph, mint, mono, mtls, rs, samtel, tog, irpc, tvt, vte) 27.09.17
LPH
LPH believes 2017 revenue growth will reach target of 10-15%, as it enters high season in 2H17. It is booking more revenue from social security and it also expects to have more people getting health insurance since they can now deduct health insurance premiums. It plans to increase clients from expatriates and to open full operation of Excellent center on this November. (Thun Hoon, 27/9/17)
Comment: Is every hospital targeting to open an “Excellent” or “Excellence” center?
MINT
MINT has issued two bonds worth Bt2bn; one with 7-year maturity and interest rate of 2.91% and the other with 15-year maturity and interest rate of 3.93%. It sold the bonds on September 25-26. It will use the funds to pay off debt and as working capital. (Thun Hoon, 27/9/17)
Comment: Look at these rates! Regardless MINT is the gold standard for how to run a hospitality company in Thailand
MONO
MONO believes 2H17 earnings will turn around on a strongly positive outlook for advertising revenue. It expects 2017 revenue to reach Bt3.3bn, as clients have expanded their ad portfolios. It plans to launch new content as soon as possible to attract more viewers. (Thun Hoon, 27/9/17)
MTLS
MTLS earnings are making new highs every quarter. It believes 2017 loans will reach target of Bt50bn, as 1H17 loans already came to Bt26bn. It expects to achieve 2300 branches by the end of this year. It will control NPLs to not go over 1.5%. (Thun Hoon, 27/9/17)
Comment: Still a lot of questions about their growth, I do wonder how many of these new loans are to existing customers that can’t pay off the old loans?
RS
RS says its beauty business “Life Star” is on an uptrend. It plans to aggressively penetrate the market by continuously launching new products. It believes 2017 revenue will reach Bt1.2bn. (Khao Hoon, 27/9/17)
SAMTEL
SAMTEL expects to win a Bt2.6bn bid from the Department of Land. It also expects to win the Bt4bn bid for a national call center project. These projects have the potential to increase backlog to more than Bt10bn . (Thun Hoon, 27/9/17)
Comment: No surprises here, now with the recent ability of SAMTEL to win projects (in the last 6 months their backlog has reached over THB 10 bn) when will AIT (arguably a better company when looking at financials) begin to win projects again?
TOG
TOG plans to take high-margin plastic contact lens to India, after negotiating with two to three big Indian partners. It is also going to receive a huge order from Europe after two manufacturing factories become ready to operate in 4Q17. It believes revenue and earnings will make new highs, supported by the opening of two new factories. It expects 2017 revenue growth to reach target of 6%. (Thun Hoon, 27/9/17)
Comment: Have always liked the management here, decent business, haven’t liked its price for a while…
IRPC
IRPC is going to finalize Beyond Everest project in 1Q18. This project involves building a factory for aromatics products with capacity of 800-900K tons per year at an investment cost of US$800-900mn. It has also budgeted US$10mn to use for digital development to progress on IRPC 4.0, starting on early 2018. (Khao Hoon, 27/9/17)
TVT
TVT is doing new businesses, online games and reality show production, which will start to receive revenue in 2H17. It expects revenue from the online game business to reach Bt50-80mn in 2018. It expects 2017 earnings to turn positive, even after the loss of Bt2.91mn in 1H17. It says 3Q17 revenue has peaked and revenue will get back to normal next year. (Thun Hoon, 27/9/17)
Comment: I am surprised that they aren’t performing better given the requirement for more shows, maybe the stress within the industry has led to the smaller digital players not ordering as many shows as they initially did in the past?
VTE
VTE is planning a restructure using the Bt390mn from capital raising. It plans to use the funds to pay off B/Es in order to reduce the risk of business expansion. It also says that it will finalize the investment plan for a solar farm and biomass power plant with 25 MW in Japan and believes 2017 revenue will be higher from 2016. (Thun Hoon, 27/9/17)
Xavi
I’ve just rotated out of Samtel in the low 15s and rotated into AIT. I think is a laggard in the IT sector. Samtel has been my best performer these past 12 months up some 40% but I think it has little upside now.
Pon
Given the new fiscal gov budget, ICT finally has a bigger role. I agree that AIT is a laggard (and a better managed company, and cheaper) but they’ve been quiet in winning projects from TOT and CAT whilst Samtel continues to announce that they’ve won more bids, could still have some more legs in the run up.
Xavi
It’s a margins game, ever since the red govt got turfed out, seems like Samart group are having trouble making decent margins from its projects…
Pon
Definitely margins aren’t as high as they used to be SAMTEL.